County Counsel Abused Authority to Illegally Arrest Process Server
After refusing service of court orders from Process Server Mark Andrews, Sonoma County Counsel Robert Pittman attempted to have him incarcerated. Is he jumping ship amidst an FBI raid of the County?
Mr. Robert Harmon Pittman has served as Counsel to the County of Sonoma, California since 2014. Per his LinkedIn profile, he leads an office of 32 attorneys and 12 support staff to oversee and implement an $11.2 million annual operating budget. He serves as the primary legal advisor to the Board of Supervisors, County Administrator, and the Registrar of Voters while providing a full range of legal services to County and its related agencies.
On September 10, 2024, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors adopted a Resolution reappointing Robert Pittman as County Counsel for a four-year term, commencing September 23, 2024, through September 23, 2028, at the I-step of the position’s salary range and with other County benefits and compensation in accordance with Salary Resolution 95-0926.
The Executive Summary stated:
This item re-appoints the incumbent County Counsel, Robert Pittman, for a term of four years, from September 23, 2024, through September 23, 2028, as designated by California Government Code sections 27640 and 27641. Mr. Pittman will be reappointed at the I-step of the position’s salary range, $337,362 per year, and he will be eligible for other County benefits and compensation in accordance with Salary Resolution 95-0926.
As of November 6, 2024, it appears that Counsel Robert Pittman and his partner, Mr. Gregory Jenkins, purchased a new home in Richmond, Virginia.
As of February 14, 2025, it appears that Pittman & Jenkins sold their Santa Rosa, California home for approximately $1.7M.
When a deed of trust/mortgage is paid in full, you can record a Full Reconveyance from the trustee stating publicly that the loan has been paid.
Based on Pittman’s recent home sale, constituents may presume that the couple plans to relocate out of state. If so, why is Pittman jumping ship while being sued for unlimited civil rights violations?
As of January 25, 2024, Slam the Gavel podcast featured Process Server Mark Andrews to share his story as follows:
Today we talked about the viral YouTube video on Mark, a process server, trying to serve paperwork to Attorney Robert Pittman, Sonoma County, California, in regards to a lawsuit involving a restraining order. Attorney Pittman somehow forgot the Civil Code of Procedure regarding Process Servers. Mark Andrews wasn't trespassing and Attorney Pittman wanted him under arrest for trespass and being on his property. However, the arrest was voided immediately as Mark knew more about the law than Attorney Pittman with the Cornell University degree. The Process Server knew the law. Pittman also makes more than the Congressman. "Pittman needs to be replaced as he committed criminal acts on video," Mark explained. TAXPAYERS need to know how their taxpayer's dollars are being spent.
To Reach Mark Andrews: nottobetakenaway@live.com or dismantlingfamilycourtcorruption.com
On January 12, 2024, Investigative Reporter Susan Bassi shared a body cam video of the false citizen’s arrest.
On July 22, 2024, Process Server Andrews filed a civil lawsuit for unlimited civil rights violations against Defendants Robert Pittman, Gregory Jenkins and The Jenkins-Pittman Trust. Mr. Andrews retained Thomas Faraday Camp as legal defense. Pittman & Jenkins are represented by fellow County Counsel Michael Alcock King.
Court records indicate that a case management conference has been scheduled for March 6, 2025. This is a continuance from the November 21, 2024 case management conference for an update regarding the status of the case, including plaintiff's attempt to remove matter to Federal Court.
One day before the sale of Pittman’s Santa Rosa home, the FBI searched the Santa Rosa home of DEMA Consulting & Management founder Michelle Patino.
Per the February 13, 2025 article in The Press Democrat:
The FBI’s involvement marks the first publicly visible federal action in an investigation that has quietly unfolded since at least November, when Texas law enforcement officials confirmed they were working with the agency on a separate probe. DEMA Management and Consulting has been under scrutiny since July 2023, when a Press Democrat investigation raised red flags over $800,000 in questionable billing by the company.
Sonoma County’s independently elected auditor, Erick Roeser, later found that DEMA failed to provide documentation for more than $11 million in payments it received. Subsequent reporting uncovered more unusual billing, including Patino personally charging the county for 22-hour workdays for months on end.
DEMA expanded to Houston’s Harris County in 2021, securing contracts under then-health director Barbie Robinson, a former Sonoma County official. Allegations of financial irregularities soon followed, leading to Robinson’s termination in 2024 and mounting legal troubles in Texas.
An October 1, 2024 article from The Press Democrat stated the following:
Emails obtained by The Press Democrat show that Roeser objected to the markups but was opposed by county health officials. He was eventually directed by County Counsel Robert Pittman’s office to pay DEMA on the grounds that there was nothing in Patino’s contract that explicitly prevented her from charging the county one rate and paying subcontractors another.
A March 8, 2024 article from The Press Democrat stated the following:
Sonoma County officials again delayed the release of a report into the billing practices of the for-profit homeless services vendor DEMA after the Board of Supervisors spent hours this week talking about the investigation and the company behind closed doors.
It was the second time in as many weeks that the supervisors and other officials met in private to discuss the case.
The county’s elected auditor, Erick Roeser, said last week he intended to publicize the conclusions of an audit into DEMA’s billing that he initiated in response to a Press Democrat investigation published in July.
When he began the inquiry, Roeser estimated it would take as long as two months. After encountering difficulties in obtaining information from the company and bringing in a private firm to take over the investigation, he estimated the report would be ready by mid-January.
On Thursday, two days after the supervisors again discussed DEMA in a meeting that was closed to the public, he told The Press Democrat he was advised by County Counsel Robert Pittman not to release the report yet. He did not have an updated timeline, he said.
For two Tuesdays in a row, the five elected supervisors, Pittman, Roeser and an unknown number of other officials have met about DEMA, saying they were legally justified in taking the discussions behind closed doors because of threats from the company’s CEO to sue both the county and the private accounting firm Pisenti & Brinker.
On Feb. 27, DEMA was one of five topics discussed in a session that apparently lasted longer than three hours, based on a Press Democrat review of the meeting minutes and video. Pittman last week refused a Press Democrat request to specify how much time the county’s elected officials spent discussing DEMA specifically, and also declined to disclose who the other officials were that participated in that meeting.
On March 5, DEMA was the only item on the agenda for the closed session. That meeting’s video suggests the supervisors and other officials spent nearly three hours in the session. “We’re doing our due diligence,” Supervisor Chris Coursey told The Press Democrat Thursday. “There’s a lot of complicated stuff going on here and a lot of different information from different parties.” He said he believed the county will ultimately release the report “in its entirety.”
DEMA CEO Michelle Patino threatened to sue both the county and Pisenti & Brinker, according to brief remarks Pittman made on his legal reasoning for taking the discussion about the vendor behind closed doors. Had there been a written threat, the county would be required to disclose it, as it did when Patino threatened litigation by email in November. The most recent threat was made orally, however.
A representative from Pisenti & Brinker declined to comment. In a phone interview Thursday, Patino initially declined to tell The Press Democrat whether she would sue the county. She has provided the county a response from a forensic auditor she hired, she said.
Pisenti & Brinker, she said, received “very biased directions” from the county on what they should examine. “I believe this will come out in my favor,” she said. “I don’t think there’s evidence that I’ve done wrong but I have learned a lot from the audit and it will help me improve how this company operates.” But later that night, Patino emailed a reporter to say she had reconsidered her answer. “I have every intention of suing the county,” she said, “specifically stating the auditors office and (County Administrator’s Office) for harassment, withholding payments and contracts, breach of contract, and failure to follow county policy and procedure.” She would also sue for discrimination, she said.
DEMA billed the county more than $26 million in county contracts to run shelter sites for medically vulnerable homeless people during the pandemic. The contracts were awarded without competitive bidding.
After The Press Democrat investigation the company continued to receive contract extensions from county supervisors worth millions of dollars, even as the audit dragged on through the fall and winter. Today, DEMA runs two housing sites for the county, one at its emergency shelter site, which has been open for 11 months, and the other at Mickey Zane Place, a former hotel in downtown Santa Rosa.
All of DEMA’s contracts were awarded under emergency orders. In the nearly four years since Patino began working for Sonoma County, her firm has never been awarded a contract through a competitive bidding process. Officials initially described their investigation as a probe into questions raised by The Press Democrat’s reporting, which outlined more than $800,000 in billing for staff positions current and former company employees did not remember existing. Patino has denied any improper billing.
Last week, Roeser said he was waiting on Patino to respond to Pisenti & Brinker’s findings in order to complete and release the report. On Thursday, he said the latest delay stems from new information from the Department of Health Services, which first contracted with DEMA in August 2020 and oversaw the company’s work. Roeser said this week he learned the health department "may have“ DEMA records it had not previously disclosed to his office or the outside firm, he told a reporter via text message.
Health services officials were now looking for additional records it may have received from DEMA, he said. Roeser did not specify what type of records were in question. Coursey declined to comment on the specifics of the closed discussion or whether supervisors were weighing how to proceed with DEMA's existing contracts.
“We want to make sure we’ve covered all our bases and given everybody a chance to make their case and not everybody’s case is being made in the same direction,” he said. A health department’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
As criminal investigations are afoot regarding Sonoma County contracts, was Counsel Pittman’s home sale coincidental or strategic?
Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.
-Proverbs 12:22
This is a big victory for you, Ms Flores. Do you mind if I share this topic on Shawn’s Rumble podcast? Or you can be a guest. Shawn worked at KTKZ AM1380 in Sacramento. He got fired about 3 weeks ago. So, we are recreating the magic.